Reflections on Realities
Asynchronous Session
Mindful Self-Compassion as a Response to Racial Battle Fatigue in African American Men: Self-Compassion for Racial Battle Fatigue
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Jocelyn Markowicz,
Bill Johnson
African American men face unique mental health challenges due to the pervasive impact of racism, including the chronic stress and psychological toll of Racial Battle Fatigue (RBF). Racial battle fatigue refers to the cumulative effects of exposure to systemic racism, leading to psychological, emotional, and physiological exhaustion. Addressing RBF is critical for improving the mental health and well-being of African American men. Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), an evidence-based intervention offers a promising approach for mitigating the effects of RBF. MSC emphasizes mindfulness, self-kindness, and common humanity, providing individuals with tools to cultivate emotional resilience and self-compassion in the face of adversity. However, there is a notable gap in research focused on applying MSC to the deleterious impact of racism on African American men. This paper proposes an expanded framework for using MSC to address the specific challenges posed by RBF. The study concludes with practical recommendations for clinicians on how to adapt MSC to better serve African American men exposed to racial battle fatigue.
Reconstructing the Tower of Babel: Knowledge Organizations and Advances in Translation Methods
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
David Vampola
Algorithmic methods of translation are increasingly used by organizations for routine tasks. But translation methods, broadly conceived, are not simply tools used by organizations for these workaday activities – they can also serve to structure them and to characterize what counts as “knowledge” within them. With the incorporation of insights from cognitive science (which includes theories of situated cognition) as well as computational modeling, translation methods can be used in knowledge management systems to widen the goals and activities of organizations. For example, these methods can: 1) provide the basis for dialogical interaction that may serve as the basis for reasoning used in decision making, 2) use principles of embodied cognition that capture the spectrum of human expressions found in faces as well as bodily movements, and 3) develop complex simulations that aid in understanding not only how disparate cultural groups will act within organizations but also how institutions will interact with each other and in broader social and political contexts. Translation methods in their broadest sense can also help define knowledge representations, or ontologies, of organizations. Furthermore, extending the procedures of translation to processes associated with other “trans” concepts (such as “transmutation” “transmission”, and “transformation”) can provide an additional opportunity to consider what counts as knowledge in an institutional domain. Translation methods therefore allow us to understand the relationship between knowledge - as information – and structures that organize aspects of socioeconomic life.
